Endgame Grinding (FFX)

[snô]

I've been on the process of 100% this game thinking that I would only need a couple of chill grind sessions to get past the endgame bosses and whatnot, but I have no idea of where to start.

I wanted to try the Don AP trick, but I need certain items to make the appropriate weapon and they're all locked behind powerful bosses that I can't defeat, so I can't do anything.

So where do I start? Do I just need to suck it up and grind the boring normal way? Is the Expert Sphere Grid good enough to enable me to kill the Arena bosses without extra Strength/Luck nodes? Should I even continue doing this ♥♥♥♥ that's going to take me 100 hours to complete? Find out in the next episode of "I've Already Invested Too Much Time So I Might As Well Just See It To The End".

[Hinnyuu]

There's really no point in doing the Don Tonberry thing until you have a means to supply yourself with all the spheres you need.

The first thing I tend to do when I reach endgame is to capture x10 of all fiends. That will keep you busy for a while, and will also supply you with a lot to work with - both equipment and items, and AP/spheres.

The next step is to acquire as many Celestial Weapons as you can/are willing to; this of course can be combined with capturing, as you will inevitably end up in the right areas while assembling your weapons. Auron's CW is basically free if you capture enough fiends, but all the others take varying degrees of extra work (order of difficulty is roughly Auron<Yuna<Rikku<Wakka<Tidus<Kimahri<Lulu, from easiest to hardest).

Once you are done capturing fiends and making CWs, you will likely be ready to take on the first important Arena boss, Juggernaut; Auron's CW helps tremendously here, as you can simply keep Auron at 1 HP intentionally for a substantial damage boost, and his Banishing Blade overdrive allows you to armor-break Juggernaut easily.

If you are running low on AP at this stage, I would suggest grinding in the Omega Ruins. In particular, pay attention to the Mimic fiends you can spawn from treasure chests there; these drop enormous amounts of gil, which you can further increase by using Rikku's Celestial Weapon (which has the Gillionnaire ability). This will help you build a nice fund for your bribing needs, which you will use when making your endgame armors - the next step you should do before starting on boss grinding. Make armors with Auto-Haste/Auto-Phoenix/Auto-Protect/Stoneproof for every character you plan to use. All the materials for these can be bribed easily. Auto-Phoenix/Auto-Haste alone is usually enough for most things, if you want to start grinding early; but get the rest before attempting actual superbosses.

Grinding Juggernaut is your first goal, to get enough +4 STR spheres to get everyone to 255 STR. Once that is achieved, everything else will get considerably easier.

At 255 STR you can take on the next two important enemies: One-Eye and Fafnir. One-Eye drops weapons with Triple AP, which you will use for the Don Tonberry trick - save any such weapon with 3 slots, sell the rest for huge amounts. One-Eye will kill you if it gets a turn, but since it only has 150,000 HP it will die in two hits if your STR is maxed and you have CWs.
Fafnir, meanwhile, is the other integral component to grinding. Its regular drop is x20 Light Curtain, x40 on an overkill. Using a "distiller" ability on it (via item or the associated attack ability) you can transform those drops into the respective activation spheres. This will be your primary source of these spheres, as getting x40 of the sphere you need in one fight is the most efficient way by far to gather them, and you will spend a LOT if you grind AP via Don Tonberry.

After this, it's just a matter of grinding out the rest of your stats. I usually go for AGI next, then DEF, ACC, MDEF, EVA (but you can vary up the order to preference). Get 255 in all but AGI, which effectively caps at 170. MAG I tend to ignore, because it's almost useless at endgame, and because it's a major pain to grind out.
The last stat you grind is LCK - you need 130 of that to guarantee hits on all superbosses, and it will be a slog to get that much. Extra will benefit you somewhat due to extra critical chance, but it's up to you how much you want to torture yourself.

Once you got all that, you're set to defeat pretty much anything. The only extra thing is making an extra set of armor for the final superboss, Penance, since the strategy against him is a little special (the armor is Auto-Haste/Auto-Protect/Auto-Potion/+20%DEF).

All this sounds daunting and complicated, but it actually isn't. The grind is far quicker than you think, and the most time will actually be spent on capturing all fiends and getting your Celestial Weapons. The actual stat grind is a breeze by comparison, with the exception of Luck, of course, which is its own little circle of hell.

[snô]

Woah, this is super helpful! I've actually gotten all the CW and upgraded them, so I only need to capture a few more monsters to get on the actual grind. Thanks for your help!